Sensations
by imitateslife
Summary: There is a word for every feeling, no matter how obscure, and Victor cycles through them all in his quest to create life. Response to the "Obscure Feelings" drabble challenge.
1. Rubatosis

_Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat._

* * *

On nights when he could not sleep and could not work, Victor would lay awake in bed, listening to the London night: the link-boys and prostitutes hawking their wares, drunken men stumbling their ways home, the occasional alley cat yowling in the distance. But some nights, there was no sound on Verner Street. Some nights, it was just Victor alone in his bed. His mind would wander… to the creature – Gordon – down below in the basement. To Igor in the next room, soundly sleeping, breathing lightly, curled up so small on the bed like he wasn't yet accustomed to having space to call his own.

But on nights like tonight, his mind focused only on his own heartbeat.

The way it rhythmically ticked the time away. His heart pumped blood in and out. What a wonder, the circulatory system! One could damage a liver, lose a kidney, but to lose a heart…! Oh, as much as Victor believed the brain to be the source of all life, he knew that no creature could survive without its heart. He wondered how many others out there appreciated the ebb and flow of blood, like tides, crashing through their veins, keeping them alive. He marveled at the sound of blood in his ears, the ticking sensation that bloomed in his forehead.

Surely he was not the only one who lay awake at night. Surely he was not the first to discover how glorious a heartbeat was.

But he would be the first to make a heart beat after it had ceased. He would be the first to imbue life into dead tissue.

He drifted to sleep, wondering if ever Gordon would know the powerful, vulnerable feeling of hearing one's own heartbeat.

A question he would never have the answer to.


	2. Opia

_Opia: The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable._

* * *

The words escaped Victor's lips deliberately as he looked at Igor: "From this day forth, you are to be my partner."

Blue eyes met blue eyes and it seemed an eternity before either man moved or spoke. Victor wondered if Igor hadn't heard him, but the way Igor's wide eyes lit from inside was more than enough to tell Victor that he had been heard. How many times before now had they locked eyes? How many times had Victor excitedly grabbed Igor by the face and pulled him in so that their foreheads might touch? They had been close before, much closer than this, and yet there was something both terrifying and riveting about this moment. Here was a man who had had no prospects in life less than a year ago. Less than a year ago, in fact, he had had no hopes of standing upright, doing great scientific work, amounting to more than a circus freak. Knowing all this as Igor's eyes widened made Victor feel terribly intrusive. He could not read minds – no man could – but he would have sworn he could see the parade of Igor's previous life and the months preceding this moment play out as the other realized just how much his world was changing.

But as for Victor, he knew that his own eyes held emotion. Intense emotion. And it frightened him. Frightened him to think that Igor could read him just as easily. Read all the excitement, hope, fear, and dare he say yearning in Victor's eyes. Surely the emotions swam up into his gaze. Surely Igor knew in this moment, if he had not known before how much he mattered… How much he mattered to a man who had not cared for another person in over a decade. It made Victor feel small, despite his proud stance, and see through. He wondered if Igor knew the very depths to which Victor cared for him. He wondered if Igor could even guess what he meant not only to their enterprise, but to the man who had given him a name and a home and a purpose in life. Victor had thought Igor would be nothing more than a means to an end… But perhaps Kant was right. Perhaps people – certainly Igor – were ends in themselves.

A sharp gasp finally escaped Igor's lips. Realization. A smile.

But not understanding. Not full, true understanding.

Victor broke eye contact first.

"We have a busy day ahead of us," he said in his brusque way, walking towards the stairs. "Presentation is in Hall H, eight o'clock sharp and there's much to do before then. I suggest you get some rest."

He was at the top of the stairs, ready to fling the cellar doors open, when he heard Igor's voice call out from the bottom of the steps.

"Victor!"

Victor paused, but could not bring himself to turn around. Could not bring himself to meet Igor's eyes once more.

"Thank you," Igor said in that quiet, awed, and breathy way of his. That innocent voice so unlike Victor's that it astounded him every time thatthis was the man who had become his closest confidant. Still, Victor allowed himself a secret smile.

"Good night, Igor," he said. "I shall see you in the morning."


	3. Sonder

_Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own._

* * *

It unsettled him, looking into Inspector Turpin's eyes. Here was a man who was everything Victor was not. Pious. Disciplined. _Religious_. It was easier to dismiss him as an ignorant fool. An enemy of progress. But now as they stood upon the ancient castle walls, Victor the only thing between Turpin and a Creature incapable of reason or empathy, something struck Victor about those dark eyes. There was _life_ in them. So unlike the milky gaze of his Prometheus. There was life. Fear. Hope. Worlds Victor could not begin to fathom.

There was a man, who despite his dogged pursuit of Victor, his raging condemnation of all Victor stood for, would risk his life to possibly save Victor's. And he understood something.

There was a spark in the eyes of men and women – living men and women – that told histories, thoughts, hopes, dreams fears. It made them complex. It made them _alive_. Whatever Turpin thought of Victor… Whatever Victor thought of Turpin… They were the same in that their eyes made them human. And whatever Prometheus was, it was not human. Not nearly as worthy of protection as the man standing with a gun trained upon the Creature.

And when the Creature flung Turpin into a mass of live wires, the bellow that rose from somewhere deep within Victor was truly one of despair. He never wanted this. He had only wanted to preserve life.

And in the end, he destroyed it.

He would never know the secrets Turpin's large, dark eyes had once held. No one ever would. And if he had the time, Victor would mourn the loss. Turpin, Finnegan, Dettweiler… and the other dozen men who had given their lives – their complex, rich, mysterious lives – in slavish devotion to this dream of Victor's. He had failed them all. Curtailed their lives.

But there was no time to mourn. Only time to get to safety. Only time to wonder how long it would be before it was his life or Igor's taken by the monster.


	4. Mauerbauertraurigkeit

_Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like._

* * *

 _Three's a crowd and all that._

He'd said as much to Igor in his letter, but there was so much more he wished he could have told him. How could he express jealousy at a time like this? A time when he should have just been grateful to be alive, that Igor was alive? Why did it gnaw at him so that he wanted to be the one Igor rushed to in relief? Better not to question why. Better only to push it down deep, gain some distance, stop caring so much.

 _Besides I think you've probably had enough of my work._

How much pain had he caused? In the last year alone, creating monsters, making demands, striving for immortality? He had failed in the end. More than failed, knowing that the lives he had inadvertently taken and those he had altered forever would have been spent in, if not the idylls of peace _,_ then at least blissful ignorance of what lay beyond death. His work. He was ashamed to own it and he was ashamed of who he'd let it make him. He'd once been full of ideals and promise. Now what was he? A fugitive? A mad scientist? Doing the devil's work as Turpin had suggested? Victor scarcely knew. All he knew was instead of replacing fear with hope, he'd done quite the opposite.

 _Truth be told, you've probably had enough of me._

Worst of all, he knew that he had alienated the one friend – the only person – who understood him. The only living being upon this earth he cared for. He had taken a fragile trust, a friendship and crushed it between his hands as if it had been made of flimsy, delicate glass. The shards stuck in his hands and made him bleed, made him weep. Whatever he and Igor had been – and whatever they could have been – had been decimated by his careless hand.

One could only spend so much time creating monsters before becoming one. And somewhere along the way, Victor had crossed the line. Unfit for human companionship, he sentenced himself to a life of solitary study, of travel.

 _Our time together is done._

 _Our achievements are in the past…_

 _And our discoveries will probably never be known._

He didn't know what hurt worse: consigning himself to obscurity or fading in Igor's memory.

 _But I will always think of you fondly._

 _And always as my friend._

…

 _You are and will always remain my greatest creation._

And that was why he had to leave. He was a monster and Igor was a man. Igor was happy, with a future before him. And Victor, enamored with his greatest creation, would never have the courage to say what he really felt. He could sign the letter "Your friend" but he would always wish he had dared sign it "Love".

But he was a monster and Igor was a man. And as Victor well knew, monsters would always eventually kill men, even those who most helped to shape them.:


End file.
